You’ve heard a lot about how COVID-19 is impacting the way we do business. Many small businesses that would not normally consider digital services have begun to innovate and offer more services online.
But how successful is e-commerce technology in allowing these new-to-digital businesses to compete online? Abandoned shopping carts have long been a source of frustration for online businesses.
In 2019, more than 10 percent of total global purchases occurred online, a figure that’s projected to nearly double in the next decade, yet the clunky user experience has remained largely unchanged for nearly three decades.
Forgotten passwords, lengthy forms and cumbersome payment processing cause Australians to walk away from millions of potential online purchases every year. This leaves consumers frustrated and sellers with lost sales – no one wins.
Australian entrepreneur Domm Holland has set out to democratise access to this technology, letting small businesses quickly create single click checkouts on their websites.
Domm is the Aussie CEO and co-founder of Fast; a company created to solve the broken e-commerce checkout process that wastes untold time for consumers and costs merchants billions of dollars in lost sales.
Here, Domm answers some important questions about the technology and why it’s now, more than ever, critical for small businesses.
What is Fast and how does it work?
Fast is building a one-click checkout for the entire internet. Our technology is making it easier for merchants to sell and for consumers to buy.
Fast can be integrated into nearly any website. It enables secure, one-click access for users without requiring a password to log in.
You sign up once, and Fast securely remembers your account and payment information, which can be used across all platforms, browsers and devices.
What problem does Fast solve for businesses?
If you want to sell something – anything – online, Fast makes it easy for you to do so. Fast works in dozens of countries, across every device and browser.
E-commerce is almost 30 years old, but the checkout process has barely changed. This is creating problems for businesses that now rely on e-commerce to survive, particularly in the midst of the global pandemic.
We believe businesses should be able to provide their customers with the ability to buy something online without having to pull out a credit card or remember their password.
This is important both for small businesses looking to make a low value sale quickly and for more niche businesses that rely on delivering a great customer service to stand out from the competition.
Customer experience is the strategic battleground for the $3.5 trillion global e-commerce market. It’s 2020, and yet online sellers still struggle with cart abandonment, a rate most estimates peg at 80 percent of potential purchases.
Checkout is the main culprit. There’s a huge need and economic opportunity for merchants to reduce this friction between selecting an item you want to purchase and actually buying it, to allow businesses to better compete with large scale platforms.
Consumers rule the day, and they will inevitably gravitate to the easiest solutions. Fast gives merchants this option.
How did you come up with the idea?
I first came up with the idea when my grandmother-in-law, who was trying to help out while one of my children was in hospital, couldn’t order groceries online for the family because she couldn’t remember her password.
I knew there had to be an easier way to access online accounts, without compromising trust or having to remember a myriad of passwords.
Where can businesses sign up to add Fast Checkout to their site?
We have experienced fantastic demand for our Checkout service and are signing up an ever-growing number of merchants. Interested sellers can now sign up to our waitlist.
